


Ring All the Bells

by celebros



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Many-Faced God, Oral Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Post-war fic is the only way I can write Arya/Gendry smut but oh man it's hard, Sex, Sexual Content, Trying to blend bookcanon and showcanon, WIP, Winterfell, so much consent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 00:41:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2903012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebros/pseuds/celebros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow—between the nightmares of knives in the Neck, the bloodless affair in the South, the coronation in the rubble—she had agreed to become someone who tracked supply wagons, delegated inventory and taxes, and argued with her maester about how best to attract more working men to Winterfell.</p>
<p>It's been four years since the end of the war and three years since Jon's coronation, but Arya is still struggling to come to terms with the role she's taken on. Rebuilding Winterfell, struggling to attract folks to resettle the North, wolf-dreams by night and nightmares by day. Then her maester puts out a call for a blacksmith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

> _“An old man sat down beside her. "Well, aren't you a pretty little peach?" His breath smelled near as foul as the dead men in the cages, and his little pig eyes were crawling up and down her. "Does my sweet peach have a name?"_  
>   
>  _For half a heartbeat she forgot who she was supposed to be. She wasn't any peach, but she couldn't be Arya Stark either, not here with some smelly drunk she did not know. "I'm . . ."_  
>   
>  _"She's my sister." Gendry put a heavy hand on the old man's shoulder, and squeezed. "Leave her be."_  
>   
>  _The man turned, spoiling for a quarrel, but when he saw Gendry's size he thought better of it. "Your sister, is she? What kind of brother are you? I'd never bring no sister of mine to the Peach, that I wouldn't." He got up from the bench and moved off muttering, in search of a new friend._  
>   
>  _"Why did you say that?" Arya hopped to her feet, "You're not my brother."_  
>   
>  _"That's right," he said angrily. "I'm too bloody lowborn to be kin to m'lady high."_  
>   
>  _Arya was taken aback by the fury in his voice. "That's not the way I mean it."_  
>   
>  _"Yes it is." He sat down on the bench, cradling a cup of wine between his hands. "Go away. I want to drink this wine in peace. Then maybe I'll go find that black-haired girl and ring her bell for her."_  
>   
>  _"But . . ."_  
>   
>  _"I said, go away. M'lady."_  
>   
>  _Arya whirled and left him there._ A stupid bullheaded bastard boy, that's all he is. _He could ring all the bells he wanted, it was nothing to her.”_  
>   
>  _— A Storm of Swords_

 

 

 

**Ring All the Bells**

_for Aleks_

During the third year of her brother’s rule, Arya moved into the bones of what had been her mother’s room. She wouldn’t have done if there had been so much as a stitch left after the burning. She would not have dared. But the walls had been scorched empty, the ashes cleared away, and all that was left was the heat from the springs.

It was the springs that had drawn her to finally claim the room. Their warm, and their noise, and the heavy steam they threw onto the mirrors. She let those things fill the space. For herself, she took a silken bed so large she could drown in it, a chest of furs and leather, and a rough wooden plaque with pins to hold the two halves of her Needle.

The week after she moved her residence, Maester Tolwas presented her with a list of items he felt she should install now that she had taken on the rooms she was due. The largest of his requests involved a writing desk, three shelves of smoky books that had been hidden in the crypts after the library fire, an armchair, an armoire, and a vanity. He’d even presented a sketched suggestion of a floor plan, almost as if he expected her to acquiesce. Perhaps he had.

At first she spent very little time in the rooms. She threw herself into the belly of the bed late in the night and left before the kitchen fires had been lit for breakfasting. She passed her time building the library, training the guard, hunting, sitting still for an hour with her eyes closed and listening to the rustle of new leaves in the Godswood, riding out to meet new bannermen as the settlements were rebuilt and repopulated. Sometimes she hid in the kitchens, where the cooks let her sit by the oven amid the noise and clatter without questioning her strangeness. Sometimes she broke in horses. Sometimes she drew maps. There was plenty to do, both the dirty, lovely work of rebuilding and the slow, familiar duties that came with being the Warden of the North.

Jon’s letters had come often at first, but now as oft as not he sent messages by dream. That was better, although she missed the blend of familiar scrawling and attempts at the neat, scrolling script of royalty. Although he always wrote his own letters, on paper he had to be careful what he called her: always “cousin”, “Warden”, “Lady Stark.” She understood. These words would be recorded, noted, made much of. The smallest slip could raise questions of legitimacy again, could cause scurrying whispers from Sunspear to Moat Cailin.

But Arya preferred dreams. In dreams, he still called her sister.

It was no great surprise, then, when after two weeks of silence her brother slipped back into her mind.

It had been a long day spent in the worst kind of way. Even when her father had prompted her, years and years before, she had never imagined herself becoming this. Somehow—between the nightmares of knives in the Neck, the bloodless affair in the South, the coronation in the rubble—she had agreed to become someone who tracked supply wagons, delegated inventory and taxes, and argued with her maester about how best to attract more working men to Winterfell.

She had barely reached the clutches of her sheets when her vision turned canine. Sleep had come fast and here was Nymeria, nosing her way through some dream landscape. Jon’s voice pressed toward her through the dark.

_Arya?_

_Who else?_

He made a soft sound that she’d come to recognize as a laugh. _Sorry. I’ve been waiting to talk to you tonight, actually. We’re debating the northern border again, I thought I’d try to catch you up._

Arya sighed, although she never knew how much these sorts of things were expressed through the wolfmind. _Just put it where you need it and send me the map._

_Hard week?_

_Got another caravan through day before yesterday. They moved on._

_Ah,_ Jon said. _Still trying to fill the rooms, little sister?_

_I don’t need them filled,_ she answered. _I need one person in those rooms. Just one. Someone to keep the forge going. Someone for the watchtower, and another for the armory. Anyone to help the maester with the ill or wounded. Someone to stay up with candles to keep the library. Someone to scrub the baths. Someone else who knows even the first fucking thing about horses, Jon._

He was quiet a minute.

_It feels stupid,_ she said. _Remember a day we would have killed to have these kinds of problems._

_Well, we did kill,_ Jon said. _And now we do have these problems._

They talked until their conversation lulled, as it did nowadays. It never surprised her, though they had more than they’d like in common: bloody hands, boring days, and the aching loneliness of ruling alone. Jon at least had Bran on his small council, though that wasn’t much good. Bran had come back quiet and slow and still. Still, Arya envied him even that company. She was alone in Winterfell. With the ghosts. The dead.

Perhaps some of that thought had leaked through, because he said, _You won’t be lonely long, little sister. More will come._

_I wish I was as sure of that as you sound,_ she said. _Maybe we should have built a new capital. Maybe they’re all afraid of the ghosts._

_There are ghosts in every corner of the kingdom,_ Jon said, and she guiltily remembered the grayscale statues across the Reach, the thousand unfound frozen bodies buried under the rubble of the Wall, the ruins of Skagos and the ever-smoking rubble of Gulltown. It was true. Winterfell seemed peaceful, comparatively.

There was a quiet moment, and then Jon said, _We’d better go if we want to get a half-decent night of rest._

The wolf-dreams took it out of them, it was true. They weren’t like real sleep. Still, she knew it wasn’t his sleep he was worried about. Their quiet, businesslike conversations bothered him as much as they did her. _All right,_ Arya said, and pushed her cold wolf-nose into the dark again, as if to touch Nymeria’s to Ghost’s over all this distance. There was no answering nudge.

They’d never lacked for things to talk about when they’d been children. Now that they’d both seen the world, they had nothing to say.

  


*****

  


Arya woke before the fire had faded. Encouraged by the lingering warmth, she stripped and slid into her smallest room. The wooden door shut tight, and she’d had the window bricked up, and once she let up the stone, steam hissed up from beneath until her head was clear and her lungs were hot. She scrubbed at her skin without looking, ran her hands up into the roots of her hair until the moisture took hold, and then sat on the warm stone with her forehead to her knees and let herself be swallowed.

She had once had a list of names that she had spoken every night before she slept. The faces had come to her clear, all of them frightened, because she was imagining the moment before their deaths. She could still summon those faces, if she tried, but it had happened already, and so there was something hollow about imagining. They were dead, all of them. All of them afraid. It had been done.

Now there was a new set of names on her tongue, a new prayer. It had been the same for three years now, since the day she arrived in Winterfell and met its scant two-dozen inhabitants.

_Uncle Benjen. Syrio Forel. Hot Pie. Jaqen H’ghar. Sansa. Rickon. Alleras the Sphinx. Gendry._

Each name hurt, and she thought she probably deserved that, but what hurt more than the names were the faces. She’d barely laid eyes on Meryn Trant, but his face floated to the top of her mind easily. The same was true of every name from the first list.

But this second list was her demand to the Many-Faced God. The names she had kept in her heart, and would never give up. The names of everyone who had left and never come back home to her. And she couldn’t remember their faces.

  


*****

  


Of course, she couldn’t remember her own face, either. So many royal halls with mirrors, in the aftermath, but she couldn’t bear to see herself. Not after the things she had done wearing her own face. She had spent years getting used to the idea that she might be the last person someone saw, but in those times she had always had the comfort of putting on another face. But her eyes, her real eyes, had been the last thing Lady Stoneheart saw, and she could never forget that.

So she’d looked away every time she started to catch a glimpse of herself in an over-polished spoon or a smooth puddle. She’d had the mirrors removed where she could, or in the case of the ones that had been built into Lady Catelyn’s room, made sure to let up steam as soon as she entered a room so they’d be fogged obscure.

The most familiar she ever got with her own face was in the steam rooms. She ran her hands across the planes of her face and could not help but know that her cheeks had filled out once she’d become well fed. Her face was still long, the peak above her forehead still sharp, her nose still gently rounded as her father’s had been. Her hair no longer limp and bedraggled, although she kept it as short as her man Barrow would cut it. Her eyes no longer sunken in exhaustion, although she could not know if they were sharp and clever or dead or sad or something new.

The second list of names was still echoing through her mind. When Bran had rejected Winterfell and passed it to her, she’d thought it was a chance. Once she’d reclaimed the Stark seat in the north, it would be a safe place. Maybe Hot Pie had escaped when the others in his inn had burned. Maybe Syrio had been watching and waiting for the war to be over. Maybe Gendry had survived the Red Women’s dark magics. And the thundercloud of Joffrey’s men that had chased him up and down the country for years before that, who wouldn’t have let something like the king’s death stop them. And the dragonfire that had burned the forests black afterward.

She had never been prone to fits of optimism before.

Sansa, at least, she knew was alive. There had been rumors of her in Sunspear, and that seemed like a climate that would suit her sister, Arya thought. The ravens came back with no message, but the first few that she’d sent returned bearing tokens instead. A small green stone. A scrap of gray silk. A dried lemon rind. Perhaps Sansa wasn’t sure if this was the real Arya, or perhaps she didn’t care to write. Either way, the message was the same. She was alive, but she was not coming back.

But now it had been three years. Sansa was alive, but the others were dead. She told herself this, sitting on the floor of the steam room, sweat and condensation pooling beneath her, the bones of her face pressing into the bones of her legs with no mercy.

  


*****

  


It was the Maester who put out the call for a blacksmith, in the end. Arya had held off, had told herself she wasn’t hoping, but the flush of disappointment she felt when he said they had a candidate was unmistakable. This was what it felt like, to have fooled yourself again.

“Well, you know some metalcraft yourself,” she said to the Maester, trying not to sound irritable. “Is he any good?”

“His work is remarkable, your ladyship,” Tolwas answered. “Yet he works slowly. It could be we would be better to wait for a man who can do faster work with less precision. We have more need for nails and supports than for fine blades and etched helms.”

“I’d rather a few slow nails than none,” Arya said. “What’s his name?”

“Master Heddle. He’s a riverlander, if it please my lady.”

She gave him the wryest look she could manage. “Haven’t you learned by now that nothing pleases your lady?”

“Of course not, my lady.”

“Or that nothing pleases your lady less than to be called by her title rather than her name?”

“My apologies, Lady Stark.”

That was almost worse, but only almost. She rolled her eyes. “Hire him on, in any case,” she said. “Send him to me sometime in the next couple of days when I’m not busy. You know as well as I do when that’ll be.” She had been bogged down by appointments and meetings and deliveries. “I’ll make sure to have a list of the most urgent work we need done.”

“Very well, Lady Stark. While we speak of lists, I should mention King Jon has sent me several names of candidates he believes we should consider when we come to hire on more guards. Former Night’s Watchmen, if I am not very much mistaken.”

“I would expect the ones who didn’t die to fall into one of two camps,” Arya said. “They’re either sharp fighters or utter cowards.”

“I assume His Majesty omitted the names of the cowards, Lady Arya,” Tolwas answered smoothly, and she looked up in time to see the spark of humor in his eyes. He slid a scroll across the table to her. “With your permission, I will send letters to these men immediately. At the very least, we need to hire on someone for your household guard. Lord Artos can hardly stay on forever.”

“Men and women,” Arya said, sliding the scroll back to him. “Unless Dailana of Milkwater and Jeyna Feverfew sound like men’s names to you.”

Tolwas blinked at the list and then said, “Quite right,” with a mild tone she suspected might be forced. “I’ll take my leave of you, then, my lady. I’m sure I’ll see you at supper, if not before.”

She started crafting the list of their needs as soon as Tolwas left, but it was no good. Their needs were endless. He might as well start with rudimentary elements: slow nails, long supports, barrel hoops. Perhaps he would speed up in time, to finish the dull work and move on to the work more suited to a craftsman. The folded-steel blades and the foolish helmets. The first would be for her, the lady of the keep, surely: that thought made her hope that he kept on with slow nails forever.

It had been almost four years since she had real need of a sword, more than thirteen since she’d had one forged for her. She still wasn’t sure she was ready.

  


*****

  


The night she followed the hooded thief, she had been tangled in meetings until long past dinner. Eventually, when it became clear they would not finish anytime soon, Maester Tolwas had ordered food brought to the meeting hall: cold chicken, hard cheese, soft but tasteless rolls, and pitchers of spiced wine. Her guests didn’t drink, but after they left, Arya sat at the table for two more hours, poring over the maps they’d drawn and wondering how many years it would take to rebuild all these cities she was meant to have. There were notes: populations before, populations after. Refugees here and there. Battles fought there, and who led them. Resources needed most desperately. (Always food, food, food and lumber, food and fresh water.) _The work will never end,_ she thought. Three years in residence, and she’d scarcely begun rebuilding Winterfell.

It wasn’t until she went to refill her cup and found the last pitcher empty that Arya realized she’d been drinking idly, filling her cup without thought of what was in it. She’d never been bothered by the sharp taste of spirits, and had loved red wines since she was a child, getting so drunk at eight that she’d vomited in the crypts and made them smell for weeks. _I should be drunk enough to know it,_ she thought, standing away from the maps in some alarm, and the standing did it. _Shit._

She took a roundabout way back to her rooms, then, trying to make her slowness appear casual and deliberate. If anyone looked on, she should simply be the Lady of Winterfell, looking about her keep to make sure all was well in the late evening before she retired.

She’d finally finished her round and was making her slow way up the wooden stairs to her rooms when she saw a cloaked figure emerge from a door in the courtyard below. The stranger didn’t see her, and made no attempts to hide the large book in his hands. More slowly than she normally would, she put the pieces together. He had just emerged from the crypts. There were precious few books down there, all of them valuable, all heirlooms. She tried to think who this could possibly be, putting this shadowed figure together with the shapes of her men and hoping it was one of them, hoping she was wrong and just addled by the wine. But no. It was not Maester Tolwas, who was shorter and wider than this man. Not Lord Artos, the stand-in captain of the nearly nonexistent guard, because he always wore the light-gray cloak of his station, and his stride was shorter than this man’s. The only man in Winterfell who stood that tall was Darron, the miller’s son, but he didn’t have a bone of cunning in his body.

It took much of her not-inconsiderable skill to follow the thief silently. He seemed completely unafraid, and she felt a hot flush of something that might have been excitement, or terror, or both. The guilty part of her was alight with _finally, finally, finally,_ the Lady of Winterfell crushing that mantra with a stern admonishment: _We do not need this._

The thief turned down a narrow street toward the edge of the keep and entered the barracks. No one lived there. No one had in years. She picked up speed as he slowed, and just as he set the book down with a solid thunk, she drew a tiny dagger from between the leather and fur in her boot, placed it at the top of his spine, and pulled back his shoulder just enough that he could feel it. She heard the tiny intake of breath, the fear, the suddenly pounding heart, and her own heart quickened. Much as she howled at herself, much as she loathed it, she could not deny how much she had enjoyed this once.

“Who are you?” she asked, making her voice hoarse to avoid recognition. If the thief was one of her own, she wanted honesty, not sniveling apologies.

He didn’t answer, but under her hand she felt the muscles of his shoulder tense. He was preparing to turn, try to disarm her: “I wouldn’t,” she said.

“If you were in my place?” he said. “Oh, you absolutely would.”

Every part of her froze, and then thawed, at the sound of that voice. He laughed, and she realized he must have felt her surprise through the hand on his shoulder. She pulled back, dropping the dagger, and he turned as she did so. It was dark, but the slats of moonlight that came through the barred window were enough to see the cut of his cheek, and suddenly she knew why she had been trying so hard to fit the thief’s shape and stride to a familiar form. She knew him. Of course she did.

But the wine was still slowing her, and before she had time to react, to ask or slap or run or anything else, the shape of that ghost had crossed the space between them and wrapped her in his arms, tighter than she’d been held since she left Jon and Bran in King’s Landing. He was breathing words in her ear, but she’d missed the first of them already. “I heard Braavos, and the Far North, and King’s Landing,” he was saying now, “and every time I got somewhere I would hear another rumor and it was all I could do to search the place I was in before moving on to the newest lead. I’m sorry I gave your maester a false name, but I had to be sure it was you before…”

He trailed off, loosened his hold on her, and took two steps back. His arms fell away. He was already speaking again, saying, “My apologies, m’lady, I didn’t mean to presume.” It took her a moment to realize that she hadn’t hugged him back, or laughed—or reacted at all, as far as he could tell.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said, taking a step forward to close the awkward distance between them. “I… I’m…”

“It’s quite all right, m’lady,” he said. “I forgot myself. You can call me Master Heddle, if you prefer, or—”

“Don’t be thick,” she said firmly. “Hang on, let me do this proper.” She took a deep, heady breath and was giddy to find that she could smell him, a musty scent of wood smoke and leather and herbs. She opened her arms and threw herself at him so hard that he grunted. She hugged him fiercely, put a hand against the back of his head so her fingers tangled in his unruly hair, and then pulled back and slapped him. He blinked.

“All right,” he said. “You’ve properly confused me, if that’s what we’re going for.”

“It’s you,” she said. “It’s really you.”

He squinted at her, and then his shoulders began to quiver. “This is probably not something that tradesmen are supposed to ask their ladies,” he said, “but are you drunk?”

“Gendry,” she said softly, because she was sure the answer was obvious and because it had been so, so long since she had said his name with anything other than sadness. She wanted to hear it and feel it in the way it had once felt: a name that stoked a fire, that warmed, that stayed.

“Arya,” he answered, and then said quickly, “Probably also not something tradesmen are supposed to do, calling their ladies by their given names.”

“Fuck what tradesmen are supposed to do,” she said with feeling, and moved towards him again, taking his face between both of her hands and pressing their mouths together. He didn’t respond at first, but then she heard and felt a soft sound in his throat, like a sob, and he lifted his hands to mirror hers, holding her face much more gently than she was holding his. His lips moved, and she opened her mouth to meet his. In response he broke away, tilting so that their foreheads touched and their mouths could not.

“That answers one question,” he whispered, and opened his eyes wide to meet hers: there was nothing else in range of her vision, not with their foreheads pressed together and their hands on each other’s faces and their breathing unsteady.

She could try to kiss him again or she could pull back entirely, but she couldn’t stay still this close to him. She retreated, not taking her eyes away from him, although she couldn’t see his expression through the dark. “Come with me,” she said.

Somehow, in all the time hoping and pretending not to hope, she’d never considered what she might say or do. This seemed right, though. This seemed like maybe something she’d planned all along but kept a secret from herself. Already the things she was imagining seemed natural.

“Why?” he asked.

“Come with me,” she said again, which she thought was explanation enough after kissing him like that, but he shook his head.

“It’s not that simple,” he said. “I’ll presume once more, m’lady: if you’re inviting me to your bed, we’ve some conversations to have before I’m willing to go with you.”

“I don’t want conversation.”

“I don’t care what you want.” His bluntness surprised her. It was delicious, to have someone tell her the truth with no fear for what she might do. She took in a breath.

“That’s fair,” she said, and pulled the strings of her thoughts together as best she could. “I’d at least like to go somewhere more familiar to me, with light. If not my rooms, then the library, or the meeting rooms.”

“With light?” he asked.

“I should see your face,” she said. He made another soft sound, this one more like a hum. It sounded pleased. She realized she hadn’t denied that she was inviting him to her bed, and was suddenly glad he couldn’t see her face. True as it may have been, she hadn’t expected him to be so forward, and she was sure she had colored bright red.

“We can go to your rooms, if that’s where you’re comfortable,” he said. “I haven’t settled in here enough to make it feel like home, that’s for certain.”

She wanted to tell him he shouldn’t be settling in the barracks, that there were rooms aplenty she could give him within the Great Keep: right now she and the stern Lord Artos were the only ones with rooms there, and it had once kept the entire household, servants and all. But he seemed not to be taking well to her forwardness, and she could not sort her thoughts enough to be certain if offering better rooms was the right thing to do.

Her feet found the way without thought, and it wasn’t until she was at her door that she realized they had walked all this way together and silent. She slipped inside and held the door open for him to join her, then lifted onto the tips of her toes to light the lamps. When she’d lit the last, she turned to face him.

He was not so very different than the last time she’d seen him. He was some inches taller, and clean-shaven, but his nose and brows were still sharp, his cheekbones still strong, his hair still dark and lovely and his eyes still sparkling. He wore a dark cloak that she would never have expected—far too broad and billowy to wear in a forge—covering a green tunic, an empty sword belt, and rough-hewn brown slacks. And there was a long scar on his forehead, and his mouth was a question, but nothing about him seemed strange or new.

His eyes were hard on her face. She wondered what he saw, what she looked like, but she would not dare to ask. She couldn’t remember how many new scars she had earned since last she saw him, or even what she’d looked like then, besides the fact that her hair had been somewhat shorter, above her shoulders, and she’d worn a boy’s clothes. Now she was in a pair of midnight-blue trousers that billowed so much they looked like a skirt—these were the sorts of concessions she made on her wardrobe, to keep the people from whispering overmuch—and a long-sleeved gray tunic that laced up the sides and sleeves.

“Tell me about these conversations we must have,” she said.

“You’re drunk,” he said gently.

“I didn’t mean to be,” she said.

“Well,” he answered, “here we are.” He sat on the edge of her bed, which seemed almost like teasing, and patted it to motion for her to join him as if it were his own room. She sat. They were quiet for several minutes, and then she let herself do what she wanted: she leaned her head against his shoulder. He rolled his arm back to put it around her so that her head came to rest on his chest. Now she wanted to lie back together, to kiss him softly like she’d never kissed anyone before, but she thought that might count as taking him to bed. She didn’t want to risk him drawing away.

He began to talk some time later, and she could hear the rumble of his words through his chest. He was telling her how he’d come through King’s Landing and met with members of the court, how finally he’d got the courage to ask after her, how many times he’d asked if they were sure, until they laughed at him and asked if he’d like to speak to the king, to be sure.

“You did,” she said quietly.

“I did,” he answered. “They offered, and I thought it was my best shot at believing it. Hearing it from his mouth. I remembered you trusted him. You told me once, after I found out who you were, that instead of stopping at Winterfell you could go with us all the way to the Wall to see him.”

“He knew,” she said.

He was quiet a moment, and then his voice rumbled, “I asked him not to tell you.” She realized she had closed her eyes, there, pillowed on his chest, but she could feel his strength and hear the gentle guilt in his words. His hand was stroking her hair. “I thought for sure he’d ignore me, though. Sending your sister a strange man from her past… Seems like an older brother might feel the need to give you some warning.”

“No, but he tried to reassure me,” she said. “When I said I was lonely.” Gendry’s hand faltered on her hair, then resumed its gentle motion. She’d said that out loud. She wasn’t sure if she’d meant to. She breathed in deep again, and let herself pull away, sitting up and looking him in the eyes. He bit his lip slightly, barely enough for her to notice. “So what now,” she said. “Right now. We can tell stories all night, I suppose, but they might be better saved for morning.”

“I told you…” he began, ducking his head, and she darted forward to lift his chin to meet her eyes.

“I’m not asking,” she said. The relief in his shoulders was painful, but she wouldn’t show him that. “But… you could stay. I’ve furs enough to make you a cot. Or you could go back to the barracks, and come to me before lunch.”

“I could stay,” he whispered. “Here, with you, no different from when we were kids.”

It was very different, but she wasn’t going to object. They pulled back the furs together to make two comfortable burrows, and he stood to extinguish the lights and pulled off his cloak and his clunky boots, and when he was curled up next to her she reached out a hand to him in the dark and put her fingertips to his face. Then she leaned in and kissed him again, just as she’d imagined, soft and dry as if she was someone else. As if she’d lived in another world her whole life, where it was possible to believe in this sort of thing, in Sansa’s stories of gentleness and warmth.

He let her kiss him, but after a moment sighed and pulled away. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you.” He reached up to hold the hand she’d put on his cheek, gripping her fingers tightly. “I don’t want you to regret me, in the morning.” They were both silent. “If it’s too hard, I can go.”

“I don’t want to doubt you’re real, in the morning,” she answered. “Stay.”

  


*****

  


She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she woke long before first light. The room was warm and damp beyond the burrows of their furs, and through the dark she could see Gendry asleep next to her, his body turned toward her in the night, his fingers tangled in hers. With her other hand she touched his hair, his shoulder covered in the sweat-damp tunic, the line of his chin. His breath was smooth and even.

There was still a faint dizziness, a slowness from the wine, but she knew she’d been right. If she had let him return to his barracks, she’d have woken at this moment believing the night before had been a dream. Other women might have sobbed or raged in such a moment, but she knew what she would have done. She’d have dressed quietly and left Winterfell for a few days without a word to her maester.

She had done it twice before. The first time, she’d had a dream of her father. He had ruffled her hair, kissed her forehead, and told her a story about his sister Lyanna. When she’d woken, she had gone to the Godswood. Then, finding no comfort there, she had kept going, climbing over the broken spot in the walls and walking to the hills. It had been a week before she’d returned, and her maester—then only newly come to his station, barely knowing the strange young woman he’d been sent to advise—had been wild with relief. It had been days before he had gently chastised her, asking that if she should need to depart again, perhaps she could leave him a message so that he would not need to worry her royal cousin with news of her absence.

The second time, a caravan had come through the gates and as its travelers clambered out, for a moment she thought she recognized Rickon among them. Upon realizing her mistake, she hadn’t even greeted them, and when she came back three days later, Tolwas had said nothing at all. She suspected he’d been deeply angry with her for leaving that time. The caravans were their best chance at reconstituting the settlements, and without the Lady of Winterfell present to make them a case for staying, the travelers had moved on the following night.

It was strange, then, to have a happiness that she could keep and claim for her own. In all her time in Winterfell, she had had only small victories, successes sent to her from the South. Maester Tolwas’s arrival had been a great moment, but she’d known for weeks he was coming. Sam had recommended him for his sharpness, diverse proficiencies, personability, and discretion, although she always wondered what Sam had told Tolwas about _her_. She remembered being pleased when Lord Artos had agreed to stay, although it had been on Jon’s advice that she had asked it of him. When goodwoman Maris had showed her the first green from the newly repaired Glass Gardens, surely there had been a spark of happiness there.

It was nothing like this. She closed her eyes and the emotion filled her, overflowing in her chest and throat so that she might have laughed or cried, were he not sleeping so peacefully beside her. This was Gendry, her fierce friend the Bull, and he had survived the war, and he was with her here in the quiet. He had returned to her, and he meant to stay. His name could be wiped from her list.

She slept again, and when next she woke there were rays of sun slipping through the window on the far side of the room, and his eyes were open. He smiled at her with his whole face and shifted on the mattress. She realized he had taken off his tunic while she’d slept, his hand no longer in hers and the shirt hanging on the bedpost by their feet.

“Hello,” he said softly.

“Hello,” she answered. “I’m sorry it’s so warm. We’re right above the hot springs.”

“I don’t mind,” he answered. “It’s been a long time since I felt truly warm.” He lifted his head to look toward the window. “The Lady of Winterfell has duties to attend, I imagine.”

“That bitch,” Arya said, and Gendry laughed. “Surely my meeting with the new blacksmith candidate is one of those duties?”

“I’ll not get on your maester’s bad side so early in my candidacy,” Gendry said.

“I don’t think he has one,” she said, and rolled onto her back to stretch. The cloth she wore to support her breasts was soaked through with sweat and unwinding itself in protest, and she almost cursed; it was difficult to bind. “Besides, when I say candidate…”

“King Jon told me you’ve been trying to convince someone to stay on for years,” Gendry said. “Much as I feel for your trouble, I’ll have you know that was a comfort to me on the road. Would have been embarrassing to come all this way only to find you’d found another smith.”

She threw her legs off the side of the bed and stretched again, cracking her neck to both sides and then looking sidelong back at the half-naked blacksmith propped up against her pillows. “Well, you’ll do,” she said, and moved through to peer out the window. “It’s half past seven. Breakfast is ready by now, but they’ll keep it warm for another hour or so. You should go, and come back for breakfast downstairs when you’re fit to meet my council.”

“Just like that?” He looked startled, almost doubtful.

“I don’t need to vet you. I know your skills. I should have done last night. Better to settle one’s professional business before muddling it up by sharing a bed.”

He let out another peal of laughter, bright and youthful. “With those sorts of standards of propriety, you sound like a proper lady.” He caught his breath and smiled, sliding out of bed to join her barefoot on the warm stone floor. “I know you’ve a lot of rebuilding to do. I know this is no little job I’ll be taking on. But I’m glad to do it for you.” He took her hand. “Thank you for trusting me.”

She looked at their clasped fingers and felt a jolt of something: nervousness, perhaps, along with this unfamiliar happiness. “All right,” she said. “Let’s us both get ready for the day, then. I’ll meet you downstairs within the hour and introduce you to the household, all right?”

  


*****

  


The chills came as soon as he was gone. She stripped quickly, fumbling, and closed herself in the steam room, taking huge breaths of vapor that did nothing to still her shaking limbs.

_It’s normal,_ the maester had told her the first time she’d told him of this trouble. _There are medicines I can give you to shorten the duration of an episode, and they will become less frequent over time, but they are to be expected, for someone who has seen what you have seen._

She’d wanted to ask what the hell he knew about what she’d seen. She suspected she might not have liked the answer.

They came without warning. Sometimes she was able to sink deep enough into herself to call up Nymeria, and then she’d just run in the woods until her human body was done being fragile. This time everything was on the surface with a dozen dozen swirling thoughts, and she could catch so few of them.

There was another list, another prayer, that came at these times. _It’s over. I’m home. No one is screaming. It’s quiet. I’m alive. There is no blood here._ It wasn’t that she imagined screaming and noise and death and blood in these moments. They were too disorganized for imagining. But these were the things she thought she feared, so perhaps arming herself against them would provide some subconscious resistance against the panic.

This time it didn’t work, but after a while she began to think his name: Gendry is here. I need to get ready. _It’s time to see Gendry. Gendry can’t see me like this._ And then she began to laugh and cry at once, what she’d heard maesters call hysteria. _After all this time, to be more afraid of being seen than anything else._

That was how Tolwas found her, naked on the floor of the hot steam room, curled up small and laughing. He lifted her gently out of the heat, dried her as best as he could without unfolding her, pulled a simple steel-blue dress over her head and a draping wool shawl over that to hide her shape. He did not speak, although a few times he hummed a few bars of some soft tune. He nestled a round felted cap over her damp and straggling hair and touched her cheek with the leathery knuckle of his forefinger.

“Arya,” he said, “can you sit up?”

He never called her by her given name. She did as he asked, feeling the rivulets of trapped water free themselves to trickle down her legs. She was not wearing smallclothes, or bindings, but he had been careful to dress her so that no one could see that.

“I cannot have you stay abed today,” he said, which she doubted but did not question. “Will you come with me to find a bite to eat? Breakfast is over, but they will have kept porridge and rolls warm in the kitchens for you.”

“The blacksmith,” she managed.

“He asked after you,” the maester nodded. “I told him you had been delayed and would see him tomorrow. I take it you met?”

“I knew him from before,” she said.

“Ah.” Tolwas’s voice was soft. “This difficulty was undoubtedly related. Any sudden shock can shake loose such episodes. I take it his name is not Master Heddle, then?”

“Waters,” she said. “Gendry Waters. My brother sent him. Jon, I mean. Or at least, knew of his coming.” She met the maester’s eyes. “He’s safe. I told him we’d take him on.”

“I assumed so. My lady, would you prefer I bring you food here?” He hesitated. “I think it best you take some air. I can reassure your Master Waters, if you think he will be concerned for you.”

“I should see him,” she said, standing up. “I wouldn’t wish for him to think—”

“You should not,” Tolwas interrupted firmly. “You should let the shock pass, and think on it, until you can be sure that seeing him will not provoke another episode.”

She wanted to say she was sure now, but she thought of their hands clasped before he’d left, of that low, anxious flutter and swoop she’d felt, and lowered her head to defer. Tolwas laughed, and she looked at him sharply.

“My apologies,” he said, meeting her eyes and offering his softest, kindliest smile. “When you listen to my counsel, then I know you must be truly out of sorts.” She smiled back, as much as she could muster. “Some color has come back to your cheeks. Will you come with me?”

They walked slowly to the kitchens, where indeed a small pot of porridge had been kept warming alongside the teakettle. There were nut biscuits with butter instead of the rolls he’d promised, a sign the kitchen staff knew she needed cheering. She wondered if Gendry had made a scene when she hadn’t arrived. She wondered how many people must know that something was wrong.

“What was on the docket for this morning?” she asked as she poured cream and sweetsap over her bowl. They’d settled by the hearth, and Tolwas was stretching out his legs. He was not an old man, not as old as Maester Luwin had been, but not young either, and he massaged his hands over his outstretched knees.

“His Majesty your cousin has sent the updated maps of the northern boundaries and several requests in accordance with their settling,” Tolwas answered. “They are not urgent. I had also thought to compare our lists of the blacksmith’s first duties. Then we take to our long list.” The long list was never-ending, and she couldn’t remember what was next on it. It was onto that list they relegated every task that was important but not time-sensitive. Every day, they worked their way through the critical matters, and if that ended, they moved on to the next item on the long list.

They had made the list in earnest during Tolwas’s first two weeks in Winterfell. At the end of the two weeks, it spanned more than six hundred items. Since then, they had added at least one or two new orders of business every week, and crossed off only slightly more than that.

He had been there for more than two years, and they were still working their way through tasks they had listed on his fifth day.

She wished, for a moment, that Gendry had come to her as an adviser and not a smith. She thought that with him and her maester, the days might have moved more quickly, the list shorter. But as much as his words had often rung with wisdom, he’d never seemed to know it. He’d always thought of himself as a common boy, a Flea Bottom boy. She smiled around a mouthful of the porridge and then found Tolwas’s hand on her shoulder. He was watching her. He was comforted, perhaps, by her small smile. Comforted to know that his lady was not a madwoman.

“We can take a look,” she said. “Much as I’ve told His Majesty I don’t care where the borders end up, I’m curious to know how far the Small Council let him compromise.”

“You seem unconcerned,” Tolwas observed. “The farther south the border is pushed, the more resettling we will need to do, and the fewer resources will be available to us. Even the loss of Eastwatch will be a great blow to our trade, inevitable though it is. But if he has given up Bear Island, Last Hearth, or any part of the Grey Cliffs, you may face losing your bannermen.”

“The Mormonts and Karstarks aren’t fool enough to leave my protection, even such as it is,” she said, waving one of her biscuits absently. “And Jon knows better than to give up Last Hearth—the Umbers made sure Bran took their point on that. Besides, Jon’s case is good. He knows better than any what the Free Folk need.”

“As you say, my lady,” her maester answered, clearly not in agreement but diplomatic as ever. He stood with a groan, hands on his knees, and raised his brows at her. “Shall we?”

In the end, it seemed, the Small Council’s advice had been taken to heart. Jon had given up the fifty leagues that made up the Gifts, both Brandon’s Gift and the New Gift, but the Free Folk’s new territory spanned barely beyond that. It was a small gift, in truth, with little more than ruins left in any of the settlements, but Tolwas seemed satisfied. It would require very little resettling on her part, and perhaps those who did remain would wish to take up her offer to stay in Winterfell. The few who remained in the Gift still were Northerners through and through, tough men and women who had survived the horrors of ice and fire. And doubtless the permission to jointly settle what was left of Skagos was the token gesture that had caused the Free Folk representatives to accept. Poring over the map added twelve more items to the long list, but many of them would be simple matters, settled by writs and letters ages before they reached that point in the list.

When finally her mind had been soothed to numbness, she washed the ink from her fingers, bid her maester good evening, and went to the forge.

The fires were roaring inside for the first time she’d seen in more than a year. (Artos had tried, once, and come so close to crushing his own hand under the hammer that she’d forbidden him to try again.) She could hear the wheezing groan of the bellows, the high clang of the hammer, the hungry muttering mouth of fire. She stood in the dark for more minutes than she cared to count, listening, hoping to overhear the timber of his voice to tell his mood, a hum or a curse. But she knew better. When Gendry was at the forge, there was nothing between him and the metal, and she knew it must have been a long time since last he was able to give them his attention. The anvil, the fire, the making.

She came inside finally, lowering the latch of the door behind her so that by the time she turned he’d have time to compose himself. But he didn’t turn at all. His bare back was to her, shirttails hanging around his waist, and he was pounding at a long flat of iron so hard that for a moment she wondered if he’d even noticed her come in. But the fresh air, the breeze from the door, would have been unmistakable. So he knew she was here, and he was hammering anyway. He paused to inspect his work and she took a shaky, shadowy breath.

“You all right, m’lady?” he asked, still without turning, and she flinched away.

“Don’t you dare,” she whispered.

He set down the hammer and turned, his eyes flinty. “Come again?”

“Don’t you dare,” she said louder.

“Don’t I dare?” he asked, brows raised.

“Call me your lady. As if you’re my fucking blacksmith and I’m the Warden of the North. Don’t you dare pretend that’s what we are to each other.”

Something relaxed in his back. “Seven hells,” he said. “I thought—when you didn’t come down this morning, and your maester said you were delayed. I thought you’d sobered up. Got embarrassed, or the like. I got mad, though I know I’d no right to, and I thought—I’m sorry.” He looked at her earnestly. “Are you really all right, though?”

“I got sick,” she said. “After you left.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “I never took you for a lightweight, Arya Stark.” And then she relaxed too: he thought she meant she’d sicked up from drinking. She could let him believe that, for now. He looked suddenly stricken. “Do you remember, then? I—we talked some, and you asked me to stay, but I didn’t—”

“No, you were perfectly honorable,” she said. “I do remember.” His eyes widened a fraction, and he turned quickly back to the forge, pretending to inspect the bar he’d been making.

“You were pretty fiery, though,” he said, trailing his fingers along the handle of the hammer where it lay beside him. “I understand if… you’d rather forget some of that. We can pretend it’s right now that I’ve come back. That this is the first time we’ve seen each other. I won’t make things strange for you, I promise.”

“All right,” she said. “Thank you. For giving me a second chance at that.”

“Of course,” he said, looking back up at her with level eyes, and she saw that he meant it. He was determined to be her friend, her confidante, to be anything she wanted but nothing more.

“Hello, Gendry,” she said softly.

“Arya,” he answered.

So she stepped near to him, his body radiating with the heat of the forge, his dark hair sweat-damp, his chest bare and swirled with the dark of fire and metal, and thought, _Yes. Like this._ She reached up a hand to his cheek, because he was still taller than she was, and looked in his eyes which were now more ocean than flint and kissed him with everything, her fire and his.

His arms wrapped around her in an instant so she was all taken up in his warmth, and he kissed her back more fiercely than she’d expected, his lips possessive as he lifted her away from the forge and into the door. He broke away just long enough to wind her fingers through his and push their hands against the door behind them, then nudged their lips together again and let her deepen the kiss, let her mouth open his and then let go of one of her hands to wrap his own around her waist again.

“I didn’t,” he gasped, pulling back, and when their eyes met he looked wild and helpless but far from lost. “I never expected, I never let myself think—”

“I did,” she said, writhing against him and feeling something strange open up inside of her. A soft, delicate hurt as blood rushed through her and lit her blazing.

“You want me?” he asked, now reaching both hands up to cradle her face again, just as he’d done last night when she first kissed him with wine on her breath and laughter on his.

“Yes,” she said, and instead of cupping his face she held his hips and rocked against them gently. His fingernails tightened on her cheeks, his eyes wide. “Don’t be stupid, of course I do.” And he choked out a sound between a laugh and a sob and let his hands wander to her shoulders, her hips, the small of her back, pulling his body away from her so that he could admire. She was still wearing the shapeless clothing Tolwas had found her that morning, but he looked her up and down as if he was seeing something magnificent.

“I’m filthy,” he said, pulling the shirt from his waistband and mopping it across his chest. “Let me get clean for you—”

“You look like you,” she said. “I don’t care about some ash and iron.”

“Do you mean here?” he asked, his voice rising sharply. “Here and right now?”

“I mean years ago and a thousand leagues away,” she answered. “I mean not to waste another moment.” And his amazement as he pulled their bodies together warmed her more than the fire.

“What do you need?” he asked, his breath husky and quick.

“I don’t need anything,” she whispered against his mouth. “I just want.”

“Show me,” he whispered back, and inhaled sharply as she reached down to unlace his pants. She pressed the flat of her hand against him and heard a succession of quick breaths. With her other hand, she pressed her fingernails into the bared skin of his hip and he hissed, tilting his head back and biting his lower lip. She watched him through all this and thought, _I can make him breathe or not breathe; this is what I have. This is having power over someone._ She didn’t know. She hadn’t known that she didn’t know.

“Gendry,” she said softly, and he looked at her sharp, like he was afraid this was going to change, so she let her eyes go dark, let him see she wasn’t going to give this up, and she said, “You want me too?” She knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it.

“Gods, yes,” he breathed, his eyes on her face like she was something golden.

“I’d like you to show me, instead,” she said, and felt everything tingle as she said it. There it was, the giving up the power. Giving something up was a kind of power, too, but it was worth everything to watch him be filled with certainty.

His mouth went wide in smiling, and suddenly the hurry was finished and everything turned slow. He reached a hand up to her face and brushed it gently down from her ear, down the side of her neck, across her shoulder and then down to circle the curve of her breast. He pressed his mouth to the curve of her jaw, soft and so sweet that now it was her breath that was taken away.

“Then I’ll take my time, if you don’t mind,” he whispered, tracing both hands up and down her sides.

“Anything,” she said, which was maybe not exactly what she wanted to say, but she couldn’t think.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked, coming close and holding her as if he meant to dance.

“What?”

“Can I take your dress off?”

“Yes. Yes.”

He pulled the shawl over her head first and threw it aside, then knelt to put his hands beneath the hem of her dress, palms sliding up her legs. He breathed in deeply when he saw that she was naked beneath, held the dress up with one hand for a moment to stroke the soft skin of her side where she knew she bore a red mark, probably puckered and ugly, where a dagger had punched into her years before. He finished in a swift motion, pulling the dress over her head and sliding her arms from the sleeves, and stepped back for a moment.

He did not whisper that she was beautiful, or let his eyes travel up and down her as if he needed to remember each part. She had seen men do that before, always to other women, and felt something shivery in her skin each time, something unpleasant and rough. She did not know what he was seeing. But his eyes were on her face, his face serious, the dress draped over one of his arms: he rolled it up and set it to the side. He looked back at her and crossed the space in long strides.

Now he held her tight and breathed in as if to take the scent of her, one arm folded across her back and the other hand cupping her ass. She could feel, against her belly, the length of an erection through his half-unlaced pants, but instead of finishing his own undressing he took gentle steps, again like dancing, and settled her down on a wooden chair against the far wall. He knelt in front of her again, caressing her sides and the outsides of her legs, and she let her breath do as it wished, and it wished to quicken.

He took one of her hands, sucked a finger into his mouth, and then another, and suckled them urgently. Then he held her own hand in both of his and guided it to her entrance.

“Touch yourself for me?” he whispered. She let her legs fall a little wider and started a slow circle around her clitoris. It felt safe, with him here in front of her, and she felt herself begin to tremble. It had been a long time since she had felt this kind of safe. She watched his face. He kept brushing her hands up and down, from her sides just below her ribcage all the way to her knees and back again, and in a moment they both began to move more quickly. He lifted himself up from his seat in front of her to bend closer, dragged his thumb across her breast, grasped her hip tightly with his other hand as if to anchor himself, and when she began to pant softly his fingers left her breast and joined the tangle of her own in stroking her. Then, once they were covered in her wetness, he pressed a finger inside of her.

Her body lifted off the chair, and she wasn’t sure what kind of noise she made. He kicked the chair away to let her stand and she did stand and he backed her up against the wall again, held her tight in place with one hand and pressed a second finger inside of her. She cried out when he began to move again, his fingers sliding back and forth, and let her own hands fall away to grip his shoulders. He moved slowly, and when she managed to look she could see that he was sweating, his eyes half-glazed, his breath coming quickly too. He was enjoying this. That made it better.

“Please,” she whispered. He ducked his head down and kissed the swell of her breast, curled his fingers gently inside her, and she said, “Please,” again and tangled her fingers in his hair.

He kissed the knot of muscle where her shoulder met her neck, tonguing it and nuzzling gently, and she dropped her hands to his hips and loosened his ties the rest of the way until the pants fell away.

He didn’t stop touching her, but with the other hand reached above their heads and pulled a length of rough canvas from a hook high on the wall. It fell to the floor at their feet, and he kicked his pants off and then used his boots to straighten the canvas. Then he slid his fingers out of her, held both her hips, and lowered them together to the ground.

“Yes?” he breathed, kneeling between her legs, and she reached down for his erection, wrapped her fingers around it, and guided it toward her. Then, “Yes,” he said as he pressed against her, collapsing forward and holding himself up above her on both hands, and “yes,” as she rubbed the head of his cock against herself, and in a moment he was the one whispering, “Please, please, please.”

She let him go, and lifted one hand to his shoulder and the other to his side. His eyes widened, and she raised a brow at him to make sure he knew what she was doing, and then with a spring of wiry muscle she flipped them swiftly so that she straddled him, propping herself above him with her arms on either side of his head. His hands, once freed, roamed to her breasts, down her sides, across her ass, and then gripped her hips tightly as she moved.

She’d wanted to take him inside of her quickly, but once he’d entered her she knew his way was better: the slow, aching movement downward. He cried out when their bodies collided at the joining, and she held him there for a moment, held the astonishing feeling of fullness, before lifting back up.

After the first few slow movements, he began to lead again, guiding her hips with his hands and gently thrusting into her. Their speed increased, and her breath matched, the air pressing out of her as he entered and gasping back on the retreat. His fingers spread across her buttocks, but stayed gentle. His eyes remained on her face, even when she sat upright to ride him. The shadows from the firelight dappled across his chest, and she could see her own shadow moving against the wall. Her own shadow, her own shape and self: her strong legs creating the motion, her belly tightening, her head thrown back, her hands gripping for his and their fingers tangling as she gathered and shook and cried out.

He slowed, but as soon as she was able she grasped at him and quickened their speed again. His eyes were already blown wide, and she wanted to watch him fall apart. She watched his breathing, watched the way he gathered himself, and from watching she was able to see when he was ready to release. She let herself topple forward again so that their bodies pressed together, their chests bare and hearts pounding against each other, and held his face still as he writhed and tossed and came.

Once he’d stilled, he rolled them back over so that he was on top and pulled himself out, rolling his body to the side and sitting up. It was messier than she thought it would be. She wondered if most people left cloths and water to clean up after at their bedsides. Didn’t much matter now, since this wasn’t a bedside.

Her body shook without her meaning it. Gendry was looking down, full of maybe surprise or doubt, but when his eyes came to her they softened. He bent back down toward her and kissed her on the lips, stroking her hair back around her ear, and then she shook all the more. “Hey,” he whispered, and pulled her to sit up, gathering her in his arms and rubbing his hands against her back as if to warm her. She knew it was already very warm, but she didn’t feel warm, exactly.

“Hey,” she murmured into the solid muscle of his shoulder.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said. It was hard to know if the way she felt was normal. It wasn’t the sort of thing she’d ever asked a maester. Against her, Gendry was solid and warm. After a while, he stopped rubbing his hands on her back and just held her. They lay back on the canvas together, and she could feel the sweat cooling her skin, and slowly the shaking stopped. She wrapped her arms around him and held him as he was holding her.

“Not the sort of thing a blacksmith is supposed to do with his lady,” he murmured after a while, and then laughed. The crackle of the fire was lower now, like a hearth, but he kept his lips beside her ear as if it would be hard for her to hear otherwise. She bit back a smile.

“That was good,” she said. “Right?”

“That was amazing,” he answered. “I wasn’t expecting… I meant to talk about things, before anything. But I thought… I always thought I would need to. That there would be things you would need to know, that we’d have to get to know each other again. I didn’t think it would be so easy.”

“We can talk about things anytime,” she said, but instead they talked about absolutely nothing until the fire was nearly out.

  


*****

  


The next day, at breakfast, Maester Tolwas introduced Lady Stark to Master Heddle. “Waters, actually,” Gendry corrected the maester, who had known that, of course, but politely looked surprised in any case. Gendry was dressed in the finest outfit he owned, a gift from Jon before he’d left the capital: sturdy boots lined with rabbit fur, with buckled fitting straps he’d added himself, fine cotton slacks in a dark gray weave, a heavy green tunic with a notched neckline, and the broad gray cloak Arya had noticed the first night.

Then Master Waters was introduced to the rest of the household: Lanna, the head cook, Lord Artos Flint, captain of the guard, Barrow, the steward, and Little Jeynah, the maid. “A pleasure to meet all of you,” Gendry said with a deferent bow, and Jeynah giggled. Arya thought Artos was probably the only one of them used to being bowed to, but whether it had been an error or not, she could see that Lanna looked pleased and Barrow surprised to find so well-mannered a Southerner.

Breakfast was served: a mound of thick-sliced bread with rich amber fig jam, a hash of spicy ground pork sausage with sweet peppers and multicolored root vegetables, a plate piled with fried eggs and another with slices of roasted tomato, and two large pots of ginger tea. The hash was new: the cooks had been fighting to find new ways to repurpose the sausage, and Arya had encouraged them to keep at it until they ran out. There was no sense in butchering another animal until they needed to. The peppers gave the meat extra flavor and juiciness. She was impressed, and made sure to tell Lanna as much.

Gendry took two servings of everything and ate ravenously, stopping between dishes to talk with Barrow about the roads from the south. Arya would think the night before was far from his mind if he didn’t keep flushing when he met her eyes. It took every measure of restraint for her not to grasp his hand under the table, or perhaps his thigh, but as much as she wanted to be impulsive, she knew she couldn’t afford to throw every bit of caution away. (Before she’d crawled to her furs in the early hours, she’d snuck into the maester’s storeroom and filled one of her mugs full of the loose-leaf blend women called moon tea. She was the Lady of Winterfell, and she needed to take care not to compromise that position. Luckily, Tolwas seemed oblivious, and she didn’t mind keeping him so for the time being.)

Lanna and Barrow cleared the food away and Artos moved his seat closer to Gendry’s. He asked about experience crafting weaponry, and Gendry said dryly he didn’t think there was a smith in Westeros who wasn’t accomplished at sword-making now, and Artos laughed darkly. Little Jeynah left for her duties, and Tolwas pulled up his list of needs for metalwork, and Gendry nodded over it, narrowing his eyes the way he did when he was thinking hard. “And for your own craft?” he asked the maester. “I know the work can be particular. A poultice that calls to be mixed with a copper rod will do poorly if mixed with a wooden one, and a stone bowl doesn’t serve tonics the way a proper steel dish will.”

After they’d finished, Maester Tolwas walked Arya to her study. “He’ll do quite nicely, slow nails or not,” he told her. “He’s got a keen mind and a level head. I’m glad your brother sent him.”

The two most influential men in Winterfell, and Gendry had won them over with hardly any effort at all over the span of a morning. She wondered how long he’d spent playing the game, and what he’d been playing for, and what his prizes had been.

“And I can see you’re glad, too,” Tolwas said as he opened her study door and gestured for her to enter. “I’ve not seen you smile that way in months, and never for more than a moment at once. You needn’t sneak your precautions, though, my lady. The Old Gods willing, I’ll be with you a long time, and we’ll have to talk about more uncomfortable things than moon tea. It’s a full spoon per day in six ounces of hot water, and you must steep for at least three minutes before you drink.”

Perhaps her maester was not so oblivious after all. But he was smiling gently, and she found she didn’t mind.

  


*****

  


Then there were a strange handful of days in which Gendry was too busy for much besides breakfast. Lanna brought him meals at the forge, and Arya stopped by in the evenings when she’d finished work on the long list, but although his smile was broad each time she entered, he never stopped work. The fourth day this happened she began to worry. “You don’t have to work yourself weary,” she assured him, but he half-smiled said, “For now, I do.”

“Well, there are other ways to wear yourself out,” she told him, and the crooked smile broke into a full grin. In his full dark apron, he stepped over to her and planted a lingering kiss on her lips, but then he was back to the bellows. She sternly pushed away the fluttering feeling in her chest and ventured again, “All right then. But you know where I sleep.”

“That I do,” he said over the roar of the bellows, his eyes trained on the forge, but then he snuck her a glance, his eyes twinkling and his grin twitching back into place. That was something. That was as good as he was going to give her, she decided, and left.

But he gave her better that night when he slipped into her room, his body lithe and freshly cleaned. He kissed her in all of her softest parts, held her hips still while she shook, and then slid up behind her and draped an arm over her, fitting himself against her without ever taking his clothing off and humming into her ear with satisfaction. He was long gone when she woke in the morning, but small gestures softened the chill of waking alone: the lamps had all been turned off, the furs resettled around her, and there was a fresh glass of water beside her bed.

He was there when she came down for breakfast, looking well-rested, and he poured her a cup of tea, then lifted the honey with his brow raised. “Just a little,” she said. “Artos drowns his tea in honey; that’s the only reason we have it. It’s my way of thanking him for staying around.”

“It can’t come cheap,” he said, and seemed to consider the rest of the table: the familiar sausage in full links, toasted biscuits with salted butter, slices of roasted apples with cinnamon. It was a good breakfast, but not the sumptuous feast she knew most lords and ladies would spread across their tables.

“Seemed silly, when there’s so few of us, to indulge very much,” she explained, “but we each have our little things. Artos his honey. Tolwas imports some flower seeds from Highgarden, and they charge us an arm for that because they can.”

“And you?”

“Never the same thing twice,” she said. It was true: much of what she paid for was information, and there were always new questions to ask. “Once a tapestry for the library, once a shipment of glass for the gardens, and the latest map for the Maester, and a big pot for Lanna so she could make stew for everybody.”

“But those are things for Winterfell,” Gendry said, laughing a little. “What about for you? A clever little dagger, or leather for light armor, or a horse, or something you like to eat? Don’t tell me it’s silks and books and perfumes now, I won’t believe you. You may be the Lady of Winterfell, but you’re not a whole new person.”

He meant it as a compliment, but she felt it as a wound: she had tried so hard to build a life that would speak of a whole new person, but he saw through that. As much as she wanted him to remember her as the sharp little girl he’d traveled with, she knew who that girl had been, who she had become, and she didn’t want to think that where she stood now was a natural progression of that path. She would not let it show, though: she looked at him wryly, and they chuckled together, and then she shook her head.

“You and Tolwas will get along,” she said. “He’s always trying to get me to find more things for my rooms. Mostly everything I have was either here before or was sent by Jon. I didn’t have a chance to get attached to anything much, before. This is the longest I’ve ever spent in one place since I was a child, and I like it how it is.” That was a kind of true, at least.

“You should move into the keep,” she said when he didn’t answer. “We don’t have anyone out in the barracks but you. So once that’s done, should I start ordering something for you? Other than the things you need for the forge, I mean.”

“Oh.” He looked surprised, and then a bit embarrassed. “Do you have a tailor? All I have now are two outfits for the forge and the fancy clothes your br—His Majesty gave me.”

“So it’s _you_ who wants the silks,” she teased.

“I want anything but the silks,” he said frankly. “I can’t keep wearing my grubby blacksmith clothes around your keep, m’lady, but I’d rather not be trouncing around in the king’s clothes all day either. Some good linen would suit me fine.”

“We don’t have a tailor, but Barrow can make do,” she said. “He does my clothes, when I need new stuff.”

“And a fine job he does, too,” Gendry said, grinning at her. She almost choked on her tea. She’d unbuttoned her vest when she sat down to eat, and the top she was wearing beneath it was one of the lowest-cut things she owned: not scandalous, but not precisely modest either. She didn’t blush, but he did, and poked at his apples a minute. “So what are you and the Maester up to today? It doesn’t sound like you get a lot of fun, being the Warden and all.”

“It’s a lot of papers,” she said. “And sorting things. And writing letters. Dictating.” She made a sour face. Dictating felt strange, but her handwriting had always been abysmal. “I thought there would be more deciding involved, but it’s everybody else that gets to do that part.” The truth was that she was glad of that, but it was also true that it had surprised her. She’d been prepared for bitter debates and endless council fights and sending out men and making rules. She hadn’t thought to prepare for boredom.

“You don’t seem to like it much,” he said, and then looked away quickly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, that’s not my place.”

“I wouldn’t mind if it were,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“Your place. I could use… someone. Other than Tolwas. I don’t want to have to talk to everybody as a lady.”

He looked at her steady for a minute and said, “I like that on the one hand. But on the other, it doesn’t seem proper.”

“Things are proper when I say they are.” That sounded more like an impetuous child that the Lady Stark talking, but she didn’t waver. “I wouldn’t make you uncomfortable, but you don’t have to apologize for saying things, is all I mean. You… I think I’ve shown I trust you, haven’t I?” He blushed again, scrubbed a hand through his hair, and smiled a little.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “About not apologizing. But I’m still going to call you m’lady. And… bow, and stuff, I guess.”

“In front of other people,” she said. “Not when it’s just us.”

“All right,” he said. “I’d better get to work. We still need to find time for that talking I mentioned. Are you likely to be busy tonight?”

“I can be done working anytime,” she said. “There’s nothing pressing today.”

“Lovely,” he said, and rising from his seat, he took her hand and bent over to kiss it. The unsettled part of her fluttered again at that. “See you then.”

Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. When Arya entered the library, Artos was standing over the table where she usually met Tolwas, leaning to look at a map with both hands flat on the table. He looked up sharply as she arrived. “My lady. Your timing is fortuitous; I was near to fetching you myself. The maester asked me to tell you to meet him in the aviary.”

She’d crossed the room in seconds to join him at the map, but there were no formations marked, no signs of attack. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“We just got a raven from Beren Tallhart,” Artos said, and tapped the dark, unlabeled square east of Winterfell. “His scouts have seen smoke rising from the Dreadfort, and they found the gates rebuilt and barred from within.” He met her eyes steadily. “They swear that the Bolton flag flies over the walls.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Arya had never been good at waiting, and every teacher she’d ever had chastised her for it. “Patience, child, or you’ll prick yourself,” Septa Mordane had said. Maester Luwin had been gentler, but direct: “Think of your mother and father,” he had said on particularly bad days. “Nobility is always waiting. You may not like it, but you must get used to it.” Jon had laughed, “You’re getting ahead of yourself,” and Mycah, more apologetically, had told her, “First you have to learn how to not get hit.”

 

Syrio had observed in a tone that did not quite mock, “You do not like when things do not come quick for you.” And Jaqen: “A girl has not learned to listen, to be quiet and still, but thinks she is ready to learn to move.” The Faceless Men had chastised with silence. Others, later, with pity in their eyes, judging her a woman with a child’s heart. And she had tried to learn.

 

And, “You must not race off ahead,” her mother had said, over and over again, but she had never listened. She and Bran both had broken ranks and rushed ahead whenever they were traveling as a family: from the Godswood to the hall for dinner, or when their parents had come to fetch them after lessons. And when in her hurry she fell and tore her dress, or scraped a knee, or dropped something: “Will you never learn?”

 

“Never,” she’d responded to her mother once, furious at the exasperation in her voice, furious at her own humiliation in front of her father and older brothers, furious that Bran in his breeches had managed to keep his feet while she’d tripped over her stupid flowing skirts. And what she’d meant was, _I’ll never be who you want me to be,_ and now when she looked at her life she thinks she was wrong.

 

She has become the Lady Arya Stark, who wears dresses and talks about succession and lands. Sleeps in a warm bed, and takes advice from a maester, and knows all the sigils of all the houses. All the houses that were left, at least.

 

But still, she had not learned to wait.

 

Smoke rose from the Dreadfort, and word had come that carrion crows fly beside the Bolton banner, and Lady Arya Stark got that word sitting in a tufted armchair at a scrubbed wooden table eating mutton and potatoes with a thin gravy and drinking red wine as if it is any other night.

 

As Warden, she can take action without the approval of the King, but her Very Small Council of Maester Tolwas and Lord Artos had advised she send to Jon first, and now the even smaller council of the blacksmith in her bed grudgingly agreed. “You haven’t the men to spare if it came to an assault,” he said, propped up on one elbow, naked to the waist, and cutting slices from an apple, alternating between eating them himself and handing them to her.

 

“I haven’t the _time_ to spare to _get_ the men,” she argued.

 

“Well, while you’re waiting to hear from His Majesty, you can send to White Harbor asking for at least a few extra pairs of eyes—” Gendry sighed and tossed the apple core onto the sheet between them. “Seven Hells, we cannot talk politics in bed. When I’m giving military advice, I want to be calling you m’lady, and I keep almost slipping. But I know I’ll get bashed upside the head if I do that here. Save my poor head, and let’s talk something else.”

 

“There _is_ nothing else,” she answered sullenly. “That’s what I hate about being a lady.”

 

“We can talk about the magnificence of your breasts,” Gendry suggested with a gesture to accommodate them, and although she was wearing her nightshirt she could not stop the fierce blush that followed. “I thought so! You like having breasts. There’s a good part of being a lady.” Then, as she was looking at him, he touched her face with two fingers, drawing them across her cheekbone and down toward her jaw. She flinched, and it took effort not to pull away, but she kept eye contact after he pulled his hand away.

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and pulled up her fur to tuck it over her shoulder, as if hiding her from himself. “I’m sorry, I just – for a moment I just couldn’t help myself. I had to make sure you were real. You’re so—I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “It’s a stupid thing, you wouldn’t have to be sorry if you were with anyone else. I don’t want you to be sorry with me.”

 

They were quiet for a while, and she settled into the bed, cozying into the furs and softening her breath so that it didn’t go hard and sharp. “Hey,” Gendry said after a moment, and she looked up at his face. He was serious, his mouth straight and eyes solid on hers. “Don’t say that, about if I was with anyone else. I spent years looking for you. Met a lot of other people in those years. But it’s you I wanted, and it’s you I’m with. Here in your bed. So don’t think about that _if_ , because for that _if_ to happen I would have to _want_ to be with anyone else, and I don’t.”

 

“Well, that’s stupid,” she snapped, “I never—” and then stopped, calmed herself with a breath instead of racing on like the old Arya would have, ruining things. “Sorry,” she said, just a bit sullenly.

 

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, and his eyes twinkled cheekily, and her sour mood retreated.

 

“You were angling for romance, just now!” she accused. “You know that doesn’t work on me.”

 

“Romance gets me shouted at,” he agreed. “But I can’t seem to stop myself from trying.”

 

“You were angling for something else, I think.”

 

His cheeks reddened. “Well,” he said, “I was admiring your breasts just now.”

 

“Were you? But you can’t see them.” She shifted back the furs to demonstrate: her nightshirt left a fair bit to the imagination: loose and flowing fabric over breasts that have never been even average-sized.

 

“I can see some suggestion,” he answered defensively. “I can imagine them, anyway.”

 

She looks across the room, toward the far wall where steam is rising from the vents. “I haven’t taken you to the springs, have I?”

 

“What, out in the hills? No. I haven’t left Winterfell since I got here.”

 

“No, here. The hot springs are what feed the steam room, and there’s a place you can get in underneath, and there’s a still pool. I never knew about it when I was young. I only found it when I moved in here.” She suspected, now, that it had been her mother’s place, as the great tree in the Godswood had been her father’s. She sat upright and slid out of bed. “I’ll take you there. I think you’ll like it.” She wrapped a dressing gown around herself, draping it over her sleep clothing.

 

“Sure,” Gendry said. “That sounds nice.”

 

“It’s a very private place,” she said, because he was clearly missing her intent. “Just a few lamps to light it, and hooks on the wall for hanging all of your clothing, and smooth stone steps leading into the hot water…”

 

“Oh,” and he flushed again. He crawled across the bed, stepping down to stand in front of her, and put his hands on her waist. “That sounds _very_ nice, then,” he said, and kissed her.

 

It was almost unfair how good he was at kissing. His mouth was wide and soft, and he wasn’t prone to pawing, roaming hands. When he did touch, it was slow, deliberate. Now his grip stayed on her waist, then moved just to her hips, his fingers digging in a little, getting purchase. She responded with her mouth, pressing and trying to ignore the hungry, dark swoop in her gut, but she kept her hands aloof and then pressed gently on his forearms, pulling them apart.

 

“Clothes,” she commanded, and he whined gently. The instinct rose in her, suddenly and fiercely, to nip at him, assert her dominance, but there was no need: he was already pulling away, gathering his tunic from the day before and pulling it over his head. He left the top laces undone, and she almost protested: that was near to a scandal, if they were seen together this way on their way to the springs. But it was late, and Winterfell all but empty. No one needed to remind her of that.

 

She refused to creep, in her own castle, so she walked down the steps and then past the storeroom doors to one of the great stone doors below. It led to the crypts, but if you took a narrow branch from near the top of the stairs, you’d find yourself in a dark hallway with warm air wafting up at you.

 

Gendry had taken a torch from the top of the stairs, and he walked behind her, lighting lanterns as he went. Her shadow cast long in front of her, and as she descended, the stone grew warm and damp under her feet. She’d only been down here a faint few times, but she found she didn’t need the light to find her way. She could follow the heat.

 

The passage ended at a cavernous room, walls smooth on one side and jagged on the other, as if someone had not finished carving it out. But this had been here longer than the castle, and it was the smooth places that didn’t belong. Arya hung her dressing gown on a wooden hook embedded in the wall – metal, of course, would have rusted a thousand times over by now – and watched as Gendry walked around the edge of the pool, lighting the five lamps. Once they were lit, the dark was chased away enough that you could see to the bottom of the pool, the water swirling and steaming, the carven steps down, smoothened stone up until it plunged deep on the far side. There the depths were still black and murky, but it didn’t matter. They weren’t here for a swim.

 

Gendry pulled his shirt off effortlessly, letting it dangle precariously from a hook, and then shucked his pants as well, and his undergarment. He was looking at her, not at the water, and she realized she was looking at him instead of undressing herself. She turned back to the wall, unlacing the wrists of her sleep shirt, and in a moment there was another pair of hands, deftly finishing and then pulling the shirt over her head. She turned back to face him, and he hung the shirt and lifted his hands to cup her breasts. She slid down her underclothes and left them on the damp floor.

 

“Gendry,” she whispered, and he knelt on the warm stone and suckled at her breasts: first one, then the other, pulling them into his mouth roughly, rolling his lips to increase the pressure, and then lapping his tongue warm and soft against them like an apology. The air was so warm that there was no chill when he pulled away, and he started to drop his mouth towards the soft nest between her legs. Already there was a rush of feeling there, an almost-ache, and she wanted to pull him away, to slide him onto a stone step and take him into her, but his mouth was too welcome a promise to reject.

 

He took her hips in his hands and eased her down until she was sitting. Then he slipped back into the water and pulled her forward so that she was poised over the edge. For a moment he did not touch. Then his thumb rubbed against her opening, gathering wetness and bringing it up to the sensitive part above, and he made a gentle circle there, his mouth still close enough that she could feel his breath, hot and quickened, but not touching.

 

She leaned backwards, resting her weight on her hands against the stone, and let her head tip back, closing her eyes and letting her breath come as it would. As it would was quicker and shallower as he moved, and then his lips and tongue came forward to touch, to lick long strokes against her there. Here, so far from any listening ears, she let herself cry out. She lifted one hand from the stone and tangled her fingers in his dark hair, pulling him into her, and as she did he hummed against her, pleased. It was almost too much: all her body damp from the steam, her feet and calves warm in the water, her nipples sensitive from his attention, his tongue lapping at her fiercely now while his thumb pressed just against her, not entering but moving gently across her, the wave washing through her as his hum made her vibrate to her core, and that soft hair under her fingers.

 

She grasped to hold onto the feeling, focused on all of it at once, and when it was all there and whole she lifted her head again to look down at him. His eyes were raised to hers, dark and desperate, and when she met them he increased his pace, withdrawing his hands and grasping her hips and moving his mouth against her, licking and sucking and twisting until she couldn’t look anymore. She squeezed her eyes shut and her whole body flooded with the feeling. He kept his mouth on her, but gentled it, until she stopped shuddering, and then pulled back and coaxed her body into the hot water until she was sitting on the stone bench, her head back against the side, catching her breath.

 

After a moment, his fingers slipped between her legs again, and she gasped. Too much. “Oh no,” she panted. “It’s your turn now.”

 

In the water, it was easy to move his body, to reverse their places so that he was on the bench, she standing before him. Oversensitive as she was, she wanted to keep him sitting there and slide onto him, but there was something else she wanted to try too.

 

First she wrapped her fingers around him. His cock was already hard, but she stroked it up and down anyway – once, twice, three times, more, moving smoothly. “Breathe,” she whispered, and he gasped in a breath and leaned his head forward, trying to bury it in her shoulder.

 

It was an awkward angle, but she needed to move him anyway. “Just like you had me,” she told him softly, guiding him up out of the water and onto the ledge.

 

She had never done it before, this act, but she had seen it done, seen it when she shouldn’t have, and she knew what it could do to a man. Knew, too, the power you held over one another when you were joined this way, how easy it would be to hurt. So you had to trust each other.

 

She lifted herself halfway out of the water and met Gendry’s eyes. They were wide, helpless – she could do anything to him now, she thought, and there were so many things she wanted. She lowered her head over him and let his cock fill her mouth, sliding her tongue against its underside, and he let out a gasp that turned into a groan, his beautiful helpless groan. She could feel his body shifting, his hands flailing as he decided where to put them, and knew that he had not expected this.

 

He settled for setting his hands back on the stone, as he had, propping himself up rather than grasping at her, and she was grateful. In a while, perhaps, she would want his hands to guide her, to set a pace and angle, but for now it was strange enough to adjust to the shape of him in her mouth, and she needed the freedom to move slowly. She withdrew, suckled at the tip as he had at her breasts (and then, when he gasped again, repeated the motions with more gentleness), licked across his length and then took him in again, letting the head of his cock drag against the roof of her mouth. Of all the things they had done, this felt the most primal by far, the most animal. She liked it.

 

As for noise, he followed the example she had set previously. He did not hold back his grunts and groans and sighs, entrusting them to her. Those noises were a swift teacher. She learned that he liked when she used her hands and mouth together, maintaining warmth and motion; that the insides of his legs were so sensitive that they could not stand too much attention; that he could not decide on a pace he liked best. She settled for a slow motion, rocking her upper body back and forth to maintain it, and after a time she felt his muscles gather and quickly thought where best to let him release himself.

 

Before she had decided, though, he had leaned forward, dipping his arms into the water to grasp her by the waist, and he pulled her up, freeing her mouth for a startled sound and laying her down on the flat stone beside the pool.

 

She moved to adjust herself slightly, and before she had finished he had grasped her hips and pushed himself inside of her in one motion, throwing his head back with a startled cry. She could still taste the slick of him on her tongue as he leaned down over her, pulled back and then caught her lips in a kiss as he thrust back into her. Her back slipped against the damp stone, and he caught her shoulder in one hand, securing her against him.

 

He stilled inside her, then began to rock, moving just enough to satisfy them both. The angle of him inside of her rubbed up against her, and she could feel the soreness of muscle and flesh that have been well used, and in a minute and a half of his rocking thrusts she found herself sated and ready. She grasped at his sides. “For me,” she said into his ear, and he grunted. All the muscles of his neck tightened, and he threw his head to one side, then the other, as if in terrible pain.

 

It was one of the strangest things about sex—the faces people made. She made them, too, she was sure, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask him about them.

 

He panted for a moment, then drew out of her and splashed into the water, washing himself quickly before returning to her side. “I didn’t,” he breathed, “think… that was something… ladies… were supposed to do.”

 

“Probably not,” she agreed. “But you remember what kind of lady I am.”

 

“A bad one,” he said, and laughed. “But you aren’t. You’re bloody amazing.”

 

She couldn’t say anything to that, couldn’t ruin his crooked smile by listing all the ways in which he was wrong, and she couldn’t, either, feel too badly about not being a perfect lady in this moment. Not when she knew what she’d be missing out on if she reformed.

 

Instead she just snuggled into his side, ignoring the excess heat and letting him wrap his arms around her and lift her head to kiss him, soft and sweet.

 

***

 

He woke her in the morning. “Didn’t you sleep?” she asked, still bleary herself but not so bleary that she couldn’t see. He looked a bit too composed, in some ways, too wild in others to be well-slept.

 

“No,” he said, but he was grinning. “I’ve been reading in your study. Mostly. There’s a history of the houses. Lots of things I didn’t know.” He hesitated. “Just after you went to sleep, I heard someone come into your study. It was Maester Tolwas. He heard me stand up and told me to come in – didn’t seem much surprised that I was here.” Arya studiously avoided blushing. “He had two letters. From the King. One for you – doubtless the response about what action to take on the Dreadfort. But the other was for me.”

 

Arya managed not to look incredulous, but barely. Gendry took a deep breath. “He said that after I met him, in the capitol, he sent word to Edric.”

 

“Oh,” Arya said softly. “Your brother.”

 

“Yes, half-brother.”

 

It made sense, of course. As the only legitimate heir, Edric had a right to know about potential rivals. But she hadn’t considered that Jon might be the one to tell him. Gendry was making no claim, after all. “Had you ever met him?” she asked. “Lord Edric?”

 

“Yes, twice. I came through the Stormlands several times, while I was looking for… that is to say, during my travels. But he was still working within a regency then. He seemed very young.”

 

“But you have no feud with him.”

 

“No, not at all. Anyway, the King didn’t need permission, of course, but it was wise of him to keep Edric in the loop. Make sure he didn’t see me as a threat. And…” Gendry took a deep breath. “It seems he takes no issue with me.”

 

“Oh!” Gendry seemed so tense, she had started to feel tense as well – anticipating something bad – but this wasn’t bad news. He’d been smiling when he woke her up. “That’s excellent!”

 

“It’s not just that,” Gendry continued. “Arya. He and King Jon have legitimized me.”

 

Arya gaped for several seconds too long. “But you’re _elder_!” she finally managed.

 

“They make it clear that there are no responsibilities that require me now. But should Edric die without an heir, I carry the name.”

 

“Gendry Baratheon.”

 

“I’m not sure I like it,” Gendry said, wrinkling his nose. “No one is over-fond of the last folk to hold the name, and I’m no exception. But it’s good enough for him – Edric – and we’ll… we’ll have to make something of it, I suppose. To renew the House into something that won’t draw spit and anger.”

 

“I’d never even considered it,” Arya said gently.

 

“I’d dreamt of it, once the Red Lady told me about my blood. But I didn’t think it would ever happen. I would never have asked.”

 

“It would have been a travesty to ask,” she said. “It’s completely unheard-of, except in cases of royal supplantation, but even then – I don’t think that’s been done in the Great Houses since my grandfather’s time. This could be tremendous for bastard boys across the realm. It sets precedent.”

 

“You’re thinking of the political ramifications,” Gendry said. “You really are a Lady. No offense.”

 

“Well, now you’re a Lord. See how long it takes _you_ to start acting like one.”

 

“Shit.”

 

“That,” Arya mocked primly, “is not polite conversation for the ears of your lady friend.”

 

“Gracious,” Gendry said. “My deepest apologies, m’lady.”

 

“Ugh, no, I don’t like it. Want to go fetch us breakfast while I read Jon’s letter?”

 

“Would love to. What should I bring you to drink?”

 

“Black tea. Strong.”

 

“Sweet?”

 

“I don’t do sweet.”

 

“You do it okay,” he said, and kissed her on his way out.

 

Arya sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, and then rubbed both hands across her face. Seven hells. _Gendry Baratheon._ The last name was sour in her mouth. Much as her father had loved him, she’d never liked King Robert. He’d been a drunk, and not much good at being a king, and he’d let Queen Cersei do whatever she liked. Up to and including killing Sansa’s direwolf. But Gendry was right. The name was good enough for Edric—and he was a good lad, Edric, she’d corresponded with him about trade and such when he’d come to his age of majority.

 

Besides, they were the only two left with the name. It belonged to them now.

 

She wondered, suddenly, if Edric had understood what Jon was asking. If he’d understood the political import of legitimizing Gendry. He hadn’t been raised as low as Gendry had, but he also certainly hadn’t had status like Jon had, when they were children. With the exception of her mother, the household had mostly treated Jon like a Stark. He’d gotten a Stark education, Stark responsibilities, Stark military training, and the invaluable gift of Eddard Stark’s love.

 

Arya went into the study. Jon’s letter was hard to miss, conspicuously placed in the center of her simple desk with a gob of red wax across the center. She cracked it, read it, and bit her lip. No one would ever open a letter from the King to the Lady of Winterfell, but if she’d been Jon, she still might have been less straightforward. There were always eyes.

 

_Lady Arya,_

__

 

_My eyes say there are no more than five men in the Dreadfort. I accept your plan: proceed as you have proposed, as swiftly as possible. Bring Nymeria. Do not let your true face be seen under any circumstances. The Realm stands with you. Inform me the swiftest way once it is done – I will be waiting._

__

 

_King Jon Targaryen, the First of His Name, King of the Andals and First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm, and Guardian of the Broken Lands_

 

She’d hated that part of the title, _Guardian of the Broken Lands_. Had fought fiercely against it in council, when she’d been in the capitol, before she’d come North. In the end, Jon had taken her aside and told her quietly: _I agree, I understand, but there must be some outward acknowledgement, and I must establish that those lands are still mine._

 

 _No one will ever want them again,_ she’d said.

 

 _They want everything, eventually,_ he’d answered, and that had been what it took for her to agree. It was true. Nothing was safe forever.

 

She threw the letter in the embers of the fire that Gendry had lit the night before, and it smoldered and smoked before finally going up altogether. The wax remained, a blackened blot on the top: they would see it, would know that she had burned it.

 

He’d be back before she would have time to draft her letters, so she’d have to wait. Have breakfast with him. Kiss him, smile at him, pretend that there was nothing wrong. And then, when he’d gone to do his smithing for the day, she’d write one letter to him, and one to the Maester – she’d promised, after the last time.

 

And then she’d change her face and disappear.


End file.
